How Do You Explain This?

Ninety-nine blogs ago, I started this Blog with the intent to show Life's Coincidents and what they might mean in our lives. I haven't always had coincidents to write about and have had to make do with the mundane, most of the time. But this is my 100th blog and I've got one of the darnedest, most unexplainable coincidents that's ever happened to me. Maybe one of you-all will have an explanation for it. If you do, by all means, let me hear it. I'm open to it.

Two days ago, I packed up the car and took the animals with me for our Summer Trek back to California. I had the Explorer stuffed with the two kitties in their carriers in the back seat, Sam Bird, the African Gray parrot in his carrier on the floor in the back seat, the trunk was stuffed with four boxes of shirts and fabric waiting to be made into shirts for SOMETHING FISHY and Chuy, the puppy, was snuggled into my lap for the better part of the trip. (Thank goodness he's not bigger than eighteen pounds or he wouldn't have fit behind the wheel!) We left Mr. Bill back in AZ to care for the houses.

I spent the night in Mojave, at a pet friendly motel, after ten hours on the road. Chuy was less than thrilled to share the bed with the cats so spent part of his night on the floor and Spooky the cat, who never shows herself to strangers, spent the better part of her night sitting in the window staring at the lit swimming pool, imagining she was in a Cat Version of Las Vegas, perhaps.

We started out the next morning at six thirty, getting up over the Tehachapis before the wind got very hard. I was trying to stop every hour and a half to two hours so Chuy and I could stretch our legs and he could pee (ditto for me). But there were places in both Arizona and California that the rest stops were closed, so sometimes our rest stops stretched to two hours or more. Well, that's the way it worked yesterday morning. Buttonwillow's rest stop was closed for repairs so we had to drive nearly two and a half hours before we could find a rest stop at Coalinga.

Now, while Chuy is finding the proper spot to expend his pee (believe me, this dog can be a connoisseur of Best Pee Spots!) I'm going to digress for a minute to fill you-all in on some background. One of our best friends in this whole world, named Tom, lives down the road in Apache Junction. Tom was one of our best Harley riding buddies in California and when we bought the house in Superior we convinced him to relocate there for his retirement too and he's been real happy with the riding and the climate down there. But this past year, for reasons not always explainable, we haven't seen too much of Tom. We've only had a couple of rides with him and we probably haven't seen him more than three times since Christmas. We had gotten together a couple of weeks ago to show him the new house and I mentioned that I'd be going back to the beach on the 19th. A week later, he said he was planning a ride to California but hadn't said when. And then, well, nothing. We got busy and that was that.

So now here I am in this rest stop in Coalinga. Chuy finally found a bush worthy to relieve himself in and I'd gone to stand in line at the Ladies. The rest stop was beginning to take more time than I wanted to spend, but since it was doubtful I'd find another rest stop open in the next hour, I decided to claim my place in line. When I finished, I spied a vending machine and spent a few minutes prying quarters out of my pocket to buy a Dr. Pepper.

With the cold soda in hand, I heard a motorcycle roll into the parking lot and I turned to look. I hadn't seen any bikes at all that morning, that I can remember. Pulling up to the curb, not ten feet away from me, just like we were in some dumb movie, is our old friend Tom on his big orange Road Glide.

I gawked, dumbfounded. "Tom! What in the world are you doing here?" I greeted.

"Nancy? Is that you?" He sounded equally surprised.

"Geez! We never get together in Arizona anymore, we have to meet at a rest stop in California?" I teased. But yes, I guess that's what was supposed to happen. I kept wanting to shake my head in wonder at all the coincidences that happened along that would result into us running into each other at the rest stop. What were the odds?

But Chuy's reaction was the best. After Tom and I chatted for a moment, he asked to see Chuy, so we walked over to the car and I let the puppy out. Frantically, he leaped out the car door and into Tom's waiting arms, licking his face thoroughly and squealing ecstatically, as though saying, "Gee, Mommy drove me all this way away from home to this hot place just so I could go potty and see my Uncle Tom and give him some kisses!" So because I don't have a better explanation for running into Tom, I'm going to use Chuy's and just enjoy it. Anybody got a better one?